Auto Suggestions are available once you type at least 3 letters. Use up arrow (for mozilla firefox browser alt+up arrow) and down arrow (for mozilla firefox browser alt+down arrow) to review and enter to select.

Overview

From a small group of religious students formed in 1994, the Taliban quickly grew into a national movement that occupied all of Afghanistan. Led by the mysterious Mullah Omar, the group established a theocracy based on strict observance of Sharia law. When the Americans overthrew the Taliban in 2001, the United States thought the regime had been defeated. Yet today, nine years later, the Taliban continue to wage a bloody insurgency.

In this extraordinary and compelling account of the rise, fall, and return of the Taliban, author James Fergusson, who has unique access to its shadowy leaders, presents the reality of themovement so often mischaracterized in the press. His surprising and, perhaps, uncomfortable conclusions about our current strategy in Afghanistan should be required reading for anyone who wishes to understand this intractable conflict.

San Francisco Chronicle, 7/31/11“Fergusson’s critique of the West’s failures in Afghanistan is devastating, and his insightful conversations with Afghans, including Taliban and their supporters, are very much worth reading.”

Reference and Research Book News, October 2011 “Fergusson…offers a portrait of the history and current status of the Taliban in which he hopes to counter Western images of the group as mere ‘bearded bigots’ and to impress upon the reader that the only way out of the mess that is the war in Afghanistan will be through a negotiated settlement with the Taliban.

From the Publisher

An intriguing argument for negotiations with the Taliban presented as the necessary precondition for a political settlement and withdrawal.

Journalist Fergusson (A Million Bullets—The Real Story of the British Army inAfghanistan,2008, etc.), who has reported on Afghanistan for 14 years, draws on his wide-ranging experience and extensive personal network. The author is convinced that the Taliban is not just unknown, but misrepresented in Western thinking and coverage. He concedes that elements of the Taliban's program and activities are abhorrent to Westerners, especially their treatment of women, but he insists that there is another side to the story. The misrepresentation leaves out what was going on in Afghanistan before the Taliban took power in 1996, and what they tried to put an end to, and ignores the fact that there are different views within the movement. Thus, when the Taliban said they were protecting women, it was partially true, at least relative to the murder, violence and rape that accompanied the rule of mujahideen commanders like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The Taliban, writes the author, are primarily Pashto, a tribal people with traditions of great antiquity, among other tribes, ethnicities and religions. Those who follow such ways, and their leaders, must be treated with respect while they work out their differences. Stopping night-time assassinations of civilians and ending the continued employment of Soviet-era prison facilities and political police would contribute as well. The misrepresentation is part of the persistent refusal of the United States and its allies in the International Security Assistance Force to open negotiations with those who might move things forward. "The Taliban has made some terrible mistakes," writes the author, "and I do not condone them. But I am also certain that we need a better understanding of how and why they made those mistakes before we condemn them."

If wars are ended through negotiation between enemies, then the Taliban will need to be among those at the table who will help bring this one to an end.

When Jackie Robinson was penciled into the lineup for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, America's
national pastime and America's future changed forever. How much is reflected in a remark Martin Luther King Jr. made to Don Newcombe: You'll never know ...

How many times have you heard readers argue about which is better, Jane Eyre or
Wuthering Heights? The works of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne continue to provoke passionate fandom over a century after their deaths. Brontë enthusiasts, as well as ...

In this compelling new biography, historian Niccolò Capponi frees Machiavelli (14691527) from centuries of misinterpretation.
Exploring the Renaissance city of Florence, where Machiavelli lived, Capponi reveals the man behind the legend. A complex portrait of Machiavelli emergesat once a ...

In Decoding the Heavens, Jo Marchant tells for the first time the full story of
the hundred-year quest to decipher the ancient Greek computer known as the Antikythera Mechanism. Along the way she unearths a diverse cast of remarkable characters ...

In this controversial New York Times bestseller, Vincent Bugliosi, the fearless attorney who prosecuted Charles
Manson, turns his critical eye on both religious believers and the atheists, indicting both camps for the intellectual shortcuts each takes to arrive at their ...

The 25th anniversary edition of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller, with a new afterword
by the author--which offers a new vision of what it is to be a manIn this timeless and deeply learned classic, poet and translator Robert ...

Here is the book that distinguished music critic Leonard Feather called a brilliantly perceptive examination
of the forces that shaped Coltrane's brief life. Illustrating the influence of African folklore and spirituality on Coltrane's work and sound, Bill Cole creates an ...

Written by two experienced lesbian therapists, Lesbian Couples covers a range of topicscommitment ceremonies and
marriage, living arrangements, work, money, togetherness and separate identities, coming out to family and friends, resolving conflict and understanding each otherand uses a variety of ...